According to one senior House staffer, the spending bill is so massive, not one single member knows everything that’s in it. That being said, the short amount of time between its unveiling and proposed vote tomorrow breaks the unanimously passed motion from Tuesday that requires a 48-hour review period before action can taken on the bill.
And while staffers frantically work to finish up the final conference report, NewMajority would like to offer this illustration:
As of yesterday, the House-passed text broke down like this: $7,174,015 per word; $1,206,185,567 per page.
4 responses so far
1 Cavosie // Feb 12, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I say bull. I read both bills: lengthy but by no means impossible.
And your point about the per word cost is . . . what? In what way does that illuminate anything? Maybe Congress should add MORE words to bring the cost per word down?
New Majority must do better than this if it actually hopes to build a conservatism that can win again. The country needs a viable conservative party. You aren’t helping.
2 Oneon1isto // Feb 12, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I love napkin math. Here’s something you don’t hear trotted out about the bill in the Tax Cuts v. Spending argument: $380 billion of the bill IS TAX CUTS.
3 fact based // Feb 12, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I’m not sure I understand your point:
if the bill was longer it would be less money per word and fewer people would have read it.
if “not a single member” knows everything that’s in it, Isnt that a reflection of the seriousness of the congressmen rather than the “massive” nature of the bill.
4 bartlettb // Feb 13, 2009 at 9:03 am
This is stupid criticism. No single member EVER knows everything that is in any large, complex piece of legislation. That is why it is essential for legislation to have proper reports to accompany them. Unfortunately, it was the Republicans who perfected the technique of ramming large bills through Congress without hearings or reports or time to study them. I seriously doubt that Ms. Bagley was among those complaining about this practice when her party was at fault.
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